


say you'll be there and hope it's enough

by halfway_there_halfway_dead



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - First Timeline, Angst, Gen, also they're ghosts, because he blinked into the future after the world got destroyed, everyone dies except five, when will i learn how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 15:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfway_there_halfway_dead/pseuds/halfway_there_halfway_dead
Summary: In the first timeline, they fail and the world ends. That should be it, right?It isn't. They manifest a day or so later, greeted by the end of the world and their own mangled, burned up corpses staring back at them. There's nothing left.Then there's a flash of blue light, glaring and intense, and they see him. Little Number Five, alive, alone, terrified and with no way to go home.





	say you'll be there and hope it's enough

In the first timeline, they fail and the world ends. The Umbrella Academy’s final showdown is between them and their own sister. Poor Vanya, who happened to have a power all along, unable to control it, unable to stop it from consuming her. They find out too late and do too little for it to go any other way. They can only really watch in horror as Vanya’s ability feeds upon her pent up trauma and rage, coaxed by a man named Harold Jenkins. Luther attacks him, ripping out the man’s glass eyeball, but it does nothing more than anger Vanya. A force, big and bright and blinding, explodes out of her and engulfs the entire world. 

 

The Earth goes up in flames, taking them, and everyone else, along with it. 

 

That should be the end, right?

 

It isn’t. They manifest a day or so later, greeted by chaos, destruction and their own mangled, burned up corpses staring back at them. 

 

Ben helps them through the transition. A shocking sight to see for everyone but Klaus, and he tries to help them adjust. 

 

It’s rough, though. As happy as they are to see Ben, they’re all frustrated. At their failure, at their actions, at being stuck in an apocalyptic wasteland instead of moving on. They’re together maybe a day, before Diego, as always, snaps and vanishes. Literally disappears into thin air. They wait for him to come back but he never returns. 

 

It’s then the rest realize they don’t have to stay together. The revelation is familiar and, unlike so many years ago, easier to swallow and follow through with. They begin to leave, one by one, until it’s only Luther left, wandering the ruins of their old home. 

 

Luther doesn’t bother to wait this time. 

 

A week into their incorporeal existence, they feel a tug. It’s a strange sensation and they have no choice but to follow it. It leads them back to the academy, where Luther still roams. 

 

“You felt that too?” Luther asks as soon as he sees them. 

 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ben mutters, almost to himself, when the others affirm it. “What we felt… that only happens when we’re anchored to someone living. But everyone’s dead.”

 

Klaus is wandering at the edge of the group, something expected of him in these familial get togethers, when something catches his attention. 

 

“Hey,” Klaus points out to them. “Does anyone else see that?”

 

They turn and there’s a flash of blue light, glaring and intense. It’s a sight they’re all well acquainted with but one they haven’t seen in a long time. 

 

“Five,” Vanya whispers, wide eyed. 

 

And there he is, little Number Five. He looks the same as the last time they’d seen him seventeen years ago, school uniform, aged thirteen and all. There’s a grin on his face as soon as he pops into existence. Then it morphs into confusion before terror becomes apparent in his blue eyes. The boy stumbles back. Then he runs. 

 

“Five!” Diego calls out to him, hoping to grab his attention.

 

It doesn’t. Five keeps running until he’s standing in front of the academy doors. Or what’s left of it. They crowd around him and it’s Allison who reaches out for him first. 

 

Only for her hands to slip right through. 

 

Their stomachs drop.

 

“He’s alive,” Diego says. 

 

“Vanya!” Five screams suddenly and they flinch. It sounds so small in the madness surrounding him. “Ben! Dad!” Tears well up in the boy’s eyes. “Anybody!”

 

“Oh my god,” Allison murmurs. “This must be where he time traveled to that day.”

 

“C’mon!” Five pleads, trying and failing to summon himself backwards, clenched fists burning blue. He strains for a while before he drops his hands. “Shit,” he mutters brokenly. 

 

It’s not long before Five finds their bodies. They may be adults but Five could recognize them anywhere. He pockets the glass eye still grasped between Luther’s fingers and begins the painstaking job of burying them under the rubble, mumbling small eulogies for each. Silent tears make tracks down his soot covered cheeks. 

 

When the boy can’t find Ben or Vanya’s bodies, he continues his frenzied search. Surely the Umbrella Academy fought this foe together, he thinks. But Ben died a long time ago and Vanya’s powers took so much, there was nothing of her to leave behind. Five claws through the debris, desperation in his actions. 

 

“Give it a rest, Five,” Vanya says gently when it’s evident he won’t stop. “You won’t find anything.” 

 

This, of course, goes unheard and the boy digs and digs until his hands are red and raw and bloodied. 

 

He does give up eventually, but it doesn’t happen until days after he’s buried his first four siblings. His school uniform is ripped and ragged now, and it’s looser on him, almost slipping off his tiny frame. 

 

“He needs to eat,” Allison says not for the first time. After the horrid revelation of the death of his whole family and the worn out acceptance that he won’t be able to find Number Six and Seven, little Number Five just kind of sits there, near their graves, and stares. He doesn’t move, he hardly breathes. He just sits and stares, a glassy look in his eyes. 

 

They take turns sitting with him. 

 

Ben and Vanya sandwich Five in between them, not saying anything at all. Sometimes Vanya hums, sometimes Ben sings, but mostly they’re silent, their ghostly limbs trying to comfort their lost brother. 

 

Klaus likes to reminisce and babbles on and on about things passed. 

 

“Remember when we dared you to blink from our roof to the roof across the street?” Klaus asks. He’s splayed across Five’s knees, something he would have never been able to get away with had Five known he was there. “We were like, what, nine? You refused to do it at first because even back then you were a buzzkill. But then what a surprise when later that day we saw you dangling from our neighbor’s roof!” Klaus cackles at the memory. “We didn’t stop teasing you for weeks! Poor little Number Five.” Klaus sighs, the smile slipping off his face. “Wonder what kinda other crazy shit we would’ve gotten into if you were there.”

 

When Diego sits with him, he speaks to him in low, pained tones. He crouches near him, so close, his form nearly goes through the boy. 

 

“You can’t g-give up, Five,” Diego tells him. “Come back to us. Please.”

 

Luther tries his best to be encouraging but there’s not much he can do unheard. He decides to sit alongside him anyway, pointing out stars and constellations and parroting inspirational quotes and speeches he once read.

 

Allison frets and worries. She pleads for him to eat, to drink, to sleep when the moon has been up for hours and Five continues to stare. She is the one who lays beside him when he eventually passes out. When he wakes, she is still beside him. She talks about Claire most times. How she hopes to see her again. How she hopes for Five to meet her. Other times she cries, wishing she could take him into her arms and embrace him. 

 

Sometimes Five cries too. Sometimes it’s quiet and they don’t realize he’s crying until they notice the fresh tear tracks running down his cheeks. Other times, the boy howls. It’s a guttural sound, one that rips their hearts in half and leaves them shaken. Five sobs and screams until he’s left clutching onto himself, his screeches turning into pitiful whimpers. 

 

It’s frustrating, being able to watch but unable to do anything. It starts getting to all of them. All of them except Ben. 

 

“You just have to be there for him,” he explains to them, softly. “Through the good and the bad, you just have to be there.”

 

It’s about two days after the boy runs out of food that he seems to understand he can’t continue on like this. They’re not sure if he’s heard their words and pleas, but they watch as he takes a deep breath, wipes away the tears and cleans himself up. 

 

Five starts to rummage through the wreckage of their home, emerging with a torn and slightly burnt photograph. It’s a picture of them, including Number Seven. A candid shot of them as children and siblings instead of superheroes in need to save the world. A shaky smile appears on Five’s lips and he tucks the photo into his blazer. 

 

Then he finds a wagon, loads it with the water he has left, and journeys off. 

 

They trail after him. They don’t know exactly what his plan is, but there’s not much to do at the end of the world, whether one was dead or alive. At least, in this way, they have each other. 

 

Five walks along the cracked concrete, the ghosts of his siblings by his side.


End file.
